Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Thank You For Your Time! Would You Mind Donating To Our Cause? The Effect Of Gratitude On Prosocial Behavior, Matthew L. Hortt

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

A random assignment experiment examined the effects of three expressions of gratitude on two prosocial behaviors: volunteering and making monetary donations to charitable organizations. The results indicated that two of the expressions of gratitude had a significant opposite effect on the two prosocial behaviors. Both a verbal thank-you speech and a hand written thank-you note, resulted in a significant reduction in the amount of pledged volunteer hours, while resulting in a significant increase in the amount of pledged charitable dollars. The third expression of gratitude, a ten dollar thank-you gift card, produced no significant findings for either prosocial behavior. The …